Horn Matters | A French Horn and Brass Site and Resource | John Ericson and Bruce Hembd » Vienna horn

Parody: A Wedding Portrait with Vienna Horn

Bruce Hembd — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 18:51:45 +0000

The Arnolfini Portrait dates from 1434. It was painted on an oak panel by Flemish artist Jan van Eyck and is also known as The Arnolfini Wedding, The Arnolfini Marriage, The Arnolfini Double Portrait or the Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife.

The perspective, detail and symbolism of the painting was remarkable for its time, most notably its use of non-Euclidean geometry in the reflective mirror on the back wall – which reveals the painter himself and a fourth “mystery” person.

Almost every detail can be interpreted as a symbol. The fruits on the window ledge for example suggest fertility and perhaps our fall from Paradise. The discarded shoes are believed to signify the fidelity and sanctity of marriage.

The dog

A small dog in the foreground is often seen as a symbol of faithfulness and love. In the version below, the dog is replaced with another object of great love and faithfulness.

It might be historically-incorrect for 1434 but imagine, what if Arnolfini had been a time-traveler like Dr. Who?

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Karl Stiegler, Vienna Horns, and a Viennese Bass Horn–Memories of Horn Calls Past: My First Issue of The Horn Call, Part III One of the things my name has become associated with over the years is scholarship into the horn in the...
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Parody: Horns of Different Flavors and American Gothic At some point, everyone believes that their instrument brand of choice is good and therefore perhaps good for others –...
Little Boy Blue, Come Blow Your Horn The Blue Boy (c. 1770) is the most famous work by English portrait artist Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788). Though not related,...
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Karl Stiegler, Vienna Horns, and a Viennese Bass Horn–Memories of Horn Calls Past: My First Issue of The Horn Call, Part III

John Ericson — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:20:06 +0000

One of the things my name has become associated with over the years is scholarship into the horn in the nineteenth century. Even in late high school I was already interested in horn history, and a prominent article in my first issue of The Horn Call was on the topic of Karl Stiegler (1876-1932). A brief bio of Stiegler may be found at present in the IHS website (this photo linked from their article) and also a more extended article with more photos may be found in the website of Hans Pizka, who wrote The Horn Call article I first read. To offer a bit of brief info on his career, the version on the current IHS website opens,

Principal Horn Wiesbaden State Theatre (1895-1899) Solo Hornist at the Vienna State Opera (1899-1906), principal Horn of the Vienna Philharmonic (1906-d.) and professor at the State Academy for Music and Art in Vienna (1917-d.).

He was a very significant Viennese player and teacher. This photo (click link to view) was included in the article, showing Stiegler with his Vienna horn in a woodwind quintet.

Among the instruments on my personal bucket list of horns I would like to own someday is a Vienna horn. I believe a lot of players have this same thought. The image below [from a fingering chart published ca. 1830/31] is from my article on early valve designs which gives more background on the double piston valve, which is one of the central, visible characteristics of this instrument, as is the crook.

Hans Pizka later in the issue advertised, and in the advertisement included this information on a Vienna horn available new at that time.

The Vienna-F-Pumpenhorn manufactured by Hermann Ganter in Munich is ready. We are glad to announce, that one of the first 6 instruments is now in the use of a solo-hornist of the Vienna Philharmonics [sic]. The horns have improoved [sic] valves, the fascinating velvet sound, perfect intonation, incomparable. The horn comes with the extra slides for B-flat and the A-crook and a soft shoulder-strap-case.

Note that his model comes with the B-flat slides and A crook in addition to the F crook. I gather that these shorter crooks are rarely used today but they have always been available as options on the Vienna horn.

Back to the Stiegler article, another thing that caught my eye in the context of the issue was the bass horn. In a photo in the article but not online at present Stiegler is seen in the “1st Vienna-Concert-Horn-Quartet” with two other horn players and another player who is described as playing a “bass horn.” What it looks like in the photo is the bass horn is a standard Vienna horn but with a modified crook or mouthpiece. What it allowed was for a player to use a mouthpiece that looks to be sized similar to a trombone or Euphonium mouthpiece on the horn, evidently to provide a more powerful bass line. According to Pizka in the article this group was “Later enlarged to a Quintett, with bass-horn for the fifth part.”

Speaking of Vienna horn quintets, a final quick plug for a group we at Horn Matters love, The Matterhorns. I was not able to find a video that could be embedded but this one on Facebook is a lot of fun and worth checking out. The Vienna horns start about 40 seconds into the video, a window into a different musical world and one that a lot of outsiders are interested to know more about. Their Facebook Fan Page is here.

The more substantial historical article in this issue was on the Brahms Trio, and when we return to this series that will be the topic.

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Horns on the Recital IV: Never Underestimate a Change of Crook

John Ericson — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 23:22:10 +0000

Last week I was feeling pretty set on horns for the recital this year but in rehearsals I still wished I had a better natural and early valved horn and was bummed that a horn I had initially planned to use had not worked out.

The best high range was achieved on a pair of crooks originally made for the “mutt” early valved horn in this article. I was using the F crook on early valved horn and the E crook made on the same mandrel at the same time on my small natural horn with the vintage mellophone bell, seen in this article. That E crook due to a difference of instrument bodies put the small natural horn in F.

Then I had a thought. Had I tried that crook on the big natural horn, this one at right? No, I had not tried all my options. Actually I had at least four reasonable ways that I could put this horn into F, as follows:

The E crook mentioned above
The F crook actually made for this horn
The F crook made for the Hawkes piston horn in this article
The G crook and a F coupler as made for the small natural horn.

A few trials showed me that the “E” crook I was using on the small horn made the best F crook for the big horn and had an even better top G on this horn than it had on the little horn.

So the next step was to put the valve section on this horn. It was built as a “convertible” instrument by Richard Seraphinoff to take a rotary valve section with slides for F and B-flat. I have in a past post described it as a “rotary valve Vienna horn“ and it is still a fair comparison I think.

I have been told that Vienna horn players are always looking for a better crook. In short as a single F valved horn that same E crook did wonders to the problem areas, turning this horn into a much better playing horn with a great, classic F horn sound. So this horn will replace the small natural horn and the mutt early valved horn on the recital.

Not everyone has the luxury of a lot of crooks to try but the change I must say is pretty striking crook to crook and most certainly extends to the difference felt by a change of leadpipe on modern horn. Never underestimate the power of a change in this part of the horn.

For more on how crooks are made see this article with a final note being that it has been great to get back to this particular horn. Seraphinoff makes a range of very authentic natural horns, check his website for more information.

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Horns on the Recital I: Natural Horn On my recital this year I wanted to play on a variety of horns and work through the story of...
Horns on the Recital II: Single Horns After the natural horn the next phase of the story of the horn to feature on the recital this year...
Making a Crook for a Natural Horn As a part of the continuing series of changes and enhancements to my site, I have added a new, online...
Horns on the Recital III: Double Horns With being committed to at the least the early horns in the prior posts on my fall recital (here and...
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A Natural Horn with Four Couplers Stacked Up In certain books on the horn there are photos of a horn built on the same general system as this...
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Random Monday: More Riots, Humor and Clammy Critics

Bruce Hembd — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 07:05:51 +0000

A lot of items have come onto the radar this week, so tomorrow look for a bonus Random Tuesday post.

UPDATE: added a screenshot of the Watt Stand.

Name this bell accessory
A video loaded in the cycle of videos in the upper left column (pictured at lower right), has me wondering about the added piece of plastic on his bell. I imagine that it makes the bell resting on the leg more comfortable. Is this commercially available?

Featured principal
Gabriel Kovach is featured on the Phoenix Symphony blog. As principal horn he is doing a super job week after week.

Ha ha you’re a riot
As a follow-up to last Friday’s “Audiences Gone Wild!” post, I did find this. (Really? The Belgian Revolution?)

A different kind of Wiki
From the Uncyclopedia, a definition of French horn.

A different kind of humor
This video you will either really like or really not understand – a humorous look at a fairly typical conversation at an orchestral audition. This gets a PG-13 rating for some foul language.

The story of Sidd Finch
It was 25 years ago when George Plimpton pulled a huge April Fool’s Day Joke with his story of a French horn playing pitcher for the Mets. (The original story.)

Hit or miss
While some critics in Chicago are naming names and pointing fingers at clams, some audience members have said “enough.”

At Horn Logic one of those critics even steps up and responds.

In a related matter, this quote in reference to the Vienna Phil was interesting, especially the last sentence:

The Vienna Phil.’s sound was extraordinary, of course: These guys never let you down there. And their execution was generally at a high level. How odd, I often think, not to hear horns flubbing. How odd to hear them play their notes sure-footedly. Don’t they know that horns have a divine right to flub?

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Random Monday: Pride, Nostalgia and Terrorism Horn pride This is one very proud horn player. More nostalgic pictures At Pamela’s Music picture archives, silly faces and...
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Random Monday: Crushed Lead Pipe, Alcoholism and Oogway Things read over the weekend. From Julia Rose’s story about her crushed lead pipe, a link to a YouTube video...
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Mid-South Horn Workshop 2010, part 2

John Ericson — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:06:50 +0000

Saturday morning we were greeted by about three inches of new snow! This impacted the rest of the workshop I am sure but most of the participants who were there on Friday stuck around for at least part of the day Saturday.

My day started with my “Beyond Farkas” session at 9 AM. This went well and I had a good audience of toward twenty at the session (thanks to Tony Cleeton for the photo from the session). I opened up to the audience about some of the areas that had started me on the road to some recent changes in my teaching, changes that move my pedagogy away from using illustrations that are not physiologically accurate. I will get to this topic further in an upcoming publication at some point but again to get some ideas about what my session was about check my outline in this post and the Mellocast for more.

Right after the session I was able to try a mellophone that had been outfitted with the new Patterson custom mellophone leadpipe, brought to the session by a regular Mellocast listener. You read that right, a Patterson leadpipe on a mellophone! It is a conversion pipe to upgrade a Yamaha mellophone to take a standard horn mouthpiece and to improve intonation and playing qualities. My initial impressions were that the playing qualities were easy but this particular instrument seemed to go a bit flat in the upper register. But this particular instrument was the older model Yamaha so on a new one it might be better. It had a very nice sound something like a cross between a Flugelhorn and a descant horn, at least for the light testing I did, and the intonation overall was way above average for a mellophone. This is a product to watch which I will try to feature in more depth at some point in the future.

After that I poked my head out and checked the weather again and it was snowing steadily. I made a decision that while I had originally planned to make a late night drive to Kansas staying as late as possible at the event on Saturday, instead I should leave early enough to get there before dark. So my main, final destination at the event was the vendor’s room.

I will post more about the music I purchased sometime soon, mostly horn ensemble music, but would at this point mention one very interesting new publication for three horns and piano, Hornsongs Vol. 3 (music of Mozart) by Verne Reynolds. It is so hot off the press that it as of this moment is not even in the website of the publisher. I also purchased six mouthpieces, two Vienna Horns CDs, and tried a bunch of horns.

To elaborate on the horns, for many people being able to try a lot of different horns in one place is a prime reason to attend a horn workshop. I gave both of the triple horns at the event a good test and they were very nice, a Durk and a Ricco Kuhn. And basically every horn that priced out at over $7,000 I liked but some more than others. But the differences were not so much that one was really better than another, they were just different flavors of great and would appeal to different players. To mention one specific brand, I liked the new version of the Medlin horn which is a recently introduced custom Geyer style horn. An example from their website is in the photo.

I also tried mutes at the event and would say the Ion Balu stop mute reviewed in this prior post is crazy good! It looks like a mute designed by Dr. Seuss but it is quite powerful. According to Ion they are selling very well, and finally trying one in person I can totally understand why.

With that I hit the road home. Snow was drifting onto the road near Stillwater and it snowed like crazy most of the four plus hours I drove north to my mom’s house. I missed most of the Saturday events and I expect that a number of other people also left early. I hope the event still broke even and also hope they have another event in the future, the venue worked well for a regional workshop. Thanks again to Lanette Compton and her studio for their efforts to host a great event.

LINK TO PART I

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Vienna Horns Jurassic Park

John Ericson — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:20:44 +0000

Fans of the Vienna Horn should love this new video. I do!

The topic is the Vienna Horn on Mellocast episode 105. I have touched on the topic previously as well, but for more check out the podcast and the website of the group in the video, Vienna Horns. And become a fan on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/VIENNA-HORNS/65043630604

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Random Monday: Pride, Nostalgia and Terrorism

Bruce Hembd — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:00:48 +0000

Horn pride
This is one very proud horn player.

More nostalgic pictures
At Pamela’s Music picture archives, silly faces and a horn couple with what looks a Raoux and Vienna horn combo.

An old story
Horndog once heard a story long ago of New York Philharmonic hornist Bruno Jaenicke bombing on a performance of the Strauss 1st concerto and trashing his horn backstage. One wonders if this was the public story behind the true story.

A new venue for orchestras?
Looking for new places for outreach concerts? This one takes the cake.

Playing for a living
Great advice from Phil Collins:

A successful musician, no matter what the venue, is one who learns to enjoy working musically on a daily basis. Without the fun, it is only a job. Play for a living.

Musician terrorists
Horndog is not sure what the intent of this article is, but see for yourself:

…they tend to think the poor hornist is less a terrorist than a victim of something worse than terrorism- the horn itself. The 2nd most effective terrorist I ever worked with was a horn player.

John will have more to say on this article in his own upcoming post later this week.

Great composer, trombonist terrorist?
Composer Sir Edward Elgar liked to play the trombone, but apparently terrorized people with it.

I went out of the room as quickly as I could and sat on the stairs, clinging to the banisters ’til the pain eased but it was no good. I couldn’t stop there as he went on making comic noises, so I went downstairs out of earshot for a bit.

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Findings from The Institute of Musical Acoustics

Bruce Hembd — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:00:27 +0000

A recent web site find had me wanting for better skills in the German language. Fortunately, the Institute for Viennese Sound Style IWK (Musical Acoustics) site does have some English translations for most of its pages.

Two specific areas that are fascinating to read present studies on the Viennese horn and in slow-motion embouchure films.

The Viennese horn study

This Vienna horn found on Flickr has a built in echo/stopping valve. Click for a larger view.

The Viennese Horn study was funded by the Austrian government and was executed over a two-year period between 1985 and 1987. While this is a study from over 20 years ago, it does offer some interesting information that backs up several theories that I have heard over the years about Vienna horns.

The frames-based layout of this web site makes it difficult to provide direct links, but with a little digging I found the study here:

Viennese Horn Study

As a byproduct of this work, new scientific ground was broken. It became evident that many of the measurement methods used were simply not precise enough. Previously, only differences between types of instruments were tested, and not different models of the same instrument.

Therefore this work created not only new concepts but also required development of completely new measurement techniques. The following is a short overview of the Viennese F-horn’s special characteristics, which are influential not only to its sound and tone color, but also require specialized playing techniques.

More specifically, the researchers found that…

… Viennese horn players must control their lip tension more exactly than double-hornists to avoid landing on the neighboring peak. Playing in high positions on the Viennese horn requires more concentration and better efficiency of motor skills.

Also, the findings backup up the notion that the double-piston valve produces smoother slurs, while the rotary valve has advantages with faster, technical passages.

Interesting too is that the Viennese horn produces an impression of a loud, fortissimo while at a lesser volume level than a double horn. According to the study, this phenomena is due to the Vienna horn’s greater amount of overtones, which help its sound to project.

The embouchure videos

The embouchure videos of David Wilken on YouTube have been a great education in studying the mechanics of embouchure and how different the mechanics can be from player-to-player.

The IWK site has a few other videos worth looking at. The major difference between these and Mr. Wilken’s videos being that the IWK videos are filmed at a straight, dead-on angle – as opposed to being filmed at a side angle.

Videos of Lip Vibrations & other Visualizations of Trumpet playing research studies

nstitute for Viennese Sound Style IWK (Musical Acoustics)

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A Blood Oath to use the F Horn?

John Ericson — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 06:00:34 +0000

The Nancy Jordan Fako book Philip Farkas & His Horn has quite a few little known facts and scenes from the career and training of the late Philip Farkas. In 1979 he was on a panel discussion at a brass event and there are a number of interesting stories and quotes from this session presented by Fako. In particular at one point Farkas is rather negative about descant horns, and it was a bias rooted in his training.

My teacher made me sign an oath in blood to play the F horn once a day, the idea being that if I remembered how the F horn sounded I wouldn’t drift too far away. He resented the Bb horn because you can’t remember how the F horn sounds from day to day. After a period of several years you’ll be quite away from the basic tone. The double horn came along and I thought that was a great improvement [over the single F horn]. Then people who had the double horn never left their thumb off. Then came the descant horn with the high F above the Bb….

I think in a way it is like a dope addiction. Somebody finds out that it is a little easier to play the Bb horn up high, then year by year starts using the Bb horn lower and lower. And when he finds that the high F horn helps accuracy he goes further and further, to the point that you see a lot of people playing Brahms symphonies on a descant horn. I think this is an abomination. I think Brahms would be the first to be angry about this if he could know.

Not a fan of the descant horn! The example he gives is a bit extreme, I have never ever heard of a player performing Brahms symphonies on descant horn, at least in the United States. It cannot be common. I also believe the “oath in blood” to use the F horn daily was only a figure of speech (!) but the whole discussion about tone and the F horn with his teacher must have really impressed Farkas as a young high school student. Farkas in the quote does not state which teacher to which he refers. He could be referring to Louis Dufrasne, who is the person most would think of as being his teacher; Farkas according to Fako considered Dufrasne the “biggest single influence in his life.” However his first horn teacher was actually Earl Stricker. Of him Fako notes

His extremely structured German approach … provided Phil with all the elements of correct playing. Stricker was born in 1902 in Okawville, Illinois, and came to Chicago in 1920 to study with Pellegrino Lecce, the principal horn of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He also spent time studying with Max Pottag and Leopold de Maré. He had a reputation as a fine player, holding the position of first horn with the Little Symphony of Chicago, under the direction of conductor George Dasch. He was a good role model and inspiration for a young, ambitious player.

Back to the blood oath, originating with either Dufrasne or Stricker, reading this now as a horn teacher in the context of the horn in the United States today the standard tone is on a practical level actually that of the double horn, not the single F horn. I have posted before about the double horn being the home base instrument and would be inclined to stick with that in a modern context. Because literally unless you have access to a real, professional quality F horn such as a Vienna horn I would rather you not play a single F horn; most are bottom of the line and play badly. But if you want to emphasize the F side of your double horn in your warm-up, which I think is part of what Farkas meant to communicate to his audience in 1979, please go ahead, it can be a tactic to improve accuracy at the least and you have the idea of working toward the ideal horn tone in place as well.

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Adult Fans of the Single F Horn

John Ericson — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:04:06 +0000

I am a fan of all types of horns, and certainly single F horns and especially Vienna horns have a following. There are many reasons for this.

Besides being cheap beginner instruments, there are reasons why a mature player might also want to play a single F horn. One school of thought is for example to warm up on the F horn as it is harder to play accurately, the idea being that when you go over to your double horn later you will be more accurate. Another school of thought is this is dangerous; it will impact your accuracy negatively to switch horns too often. But change can be fun, and probably every couple weeks I do my full warm-up on the horn at the right, a single horn of nineteenth century design with crooks made for me by Richard Seraphinoff.

The other thing about old style single horns is that they are fun to play.

This is nowhere more evident than in Scotland. For years I have had a link in my links page to the Scottish Vienna Horns. I don’t know anyone in the group, but I just love the idea of enthusiasts of the Vienna horn starting a group in Scotland. Today I learned however that one Vienna horn enthusiast group is not enough for Scotland! There is now another group, the Vienna Horns of Scotland. Check out both websites. Maybe it is time for a similar enthusiast group in the United States.

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My Rotary Valve “Vienna horn”

John Ericson — Sun, 18 May 2008 14:46:29 +0000

As I think back on it many summers I have had a “project” of some sort. This summer I plan to play quite a bit on my “convertible” natural horn with detachable valve section, which was made for me several years ago by Richard Seraphinoff in connection with my research into the valved horn in the 19th century. It is very accurate to mid to late 19th century practices and is in effect very similar to a Vienna horn—except that it has rotary valves when the valve section is on the instrument. In the photo the crook is off. While I normally use it in F, it may be crooked in any key and I have two sets of valve slides for the instrument, one set for B-flat and another for F.

Vienna horns are a topic that I have to this point never specifically posted on in my main site or in my blog. What makes a Vienna horn a Vienna horn? Well, number one it is an instrument closely rooted in the design of the natural horn, with a small bell and crooks, a small bore, and best played with a deep mouthpiece of the type used on natural horn. Number two it has double piston Vienna Valves.

The tone is unique and somewhat hard to describe. It is not the sound we expect from a modern horn, and there are definitely enthusiasts of this type of tone. In particular I have had a link in my links page for years to the Scottish Vienna Horns, an enthusiast group. I have never had any direct contact with them but I just love the concept of a club devoted to the Vienna horn in Scotland! There is a great photo of a Vienna horn in their main page and more information on Vienna horns in their site. The illustration below is another possible design.

Back to the tone, in the low range my convertible horn has a tone I would describe as being very rich. In the upper range the tone can get a bit wild but it is at the same time rather exciting to hear when played with gusto. Finding the right mouthpiece helps the instrument a lot, the same mouthpiece I use on modern horn is not a good choice. And accuracy is, well, more of a challenge. You are playing on the F side only, the harmonics are tougher to hit. Which is why so few players use them today—primarily only the hornists of the Vienna Philharmonic itself. It takes a great ear and years of practice to master an instrument of this type, it is more difficult to play than modern horn.

While my horn is not a Vienna horn, it plays much better than any comparable modern single F horn and gives a pretty accurate impression of what a Vienna horn would play like. Modern production single F horns as sold in the United States are always “bottom of the line” and really do not give you a clear idea what a pro quality single F would play like.

If you have the chance down the line to give a Vienna horn a try be sure to take it, it is a very interesting experience.

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